Another Israeli attack on 16 October hit just 40 metres from a civil defence centre in Nabatieh, wounding three more rescue workers and killing one, 30-year-old Naji Fahes.
He had two children, Fakih said quietly, remembering his friend and colleague.
We are experiencing a great loss, he said, because these men are heroes, in every way. Choking up, Fakih turned around to catch his breath before he could continue the interview.
After a few minutes, he turned back around and said: Despite the strikes, the obstacles that are happening, and all the suffering, the civil defence workers remain present¦ Citizens depend on us to save them.
Fakih heads rescue operations from 21 civil defence centres located in different cities throughout the southern Nabatieh governorate, including in several border towns devastated by Israels air strikes and ground invasion.
''We are experiencing a great loss because these men are heroes, in every way''
- Hussein Fakih, civil defence chief
Lebanons National News Agency (NNA) reported on 5 November that the Israeli army had razed 37 villages in southern Lebanon and destroyed more than 40,000 housing units, in an area three kilometres deep along the border.
At least 3,243 people have been killed in Lebanon since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began in October last year, according to Lebanon''s health ministry. Most have died since 23 September, when Israel launched a wide-scale bombing campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion.
With more direct Israeli attacks on first responders, Fakih said their work has become increasingly deadly. Every day our work is becoming harder than the last, he said.
He noted that 13 civil defence personnel working in southern Lebanon have been killed and around 46 wounded since the start of the fighting.
Fakih estimates that Israels direct targeting of rescue workers has increased since around 9 September, when a strike killed three clearly-designated paramedics extinguishing fires in the southern town of Faroun.
The Israeli army has on multiple occasions threatened to target ambulances in southern Lebanon, accusing them of allegedly transporting Hezbollah fighters and weapons.
A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report documented three attacks in which Israeli forces unlawfully struck medical personnel, transports, and facilities. HRW did not find any evidence indicating the use of these facilities for military purposes at the time of the attack.
Over the course of 24 hours, on 9 and 10 November, Israeli strikes on paramedic gathering points and civil defence centres killed 10 rescue workers from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Scouts and the Islamic Health Association.
HRW reiterated in its report that membership or affiliation with Hezbollah, or other political movements with armed wings, is not sufficient basis for determining an individual to be a lawful military target.
The Israeli military should immediately halt unlawful attacks on medical workers and healthcare facilities, and Israels allies should suspend the transfer of arms to Israel given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses, HRW said.
Fakih said his rescue teams are constantly repositioning and spreading out to avoid an attack resulting in a mass casualties of rescue workers. Also, his teams usually wait five minutes if there are no confirmed civilians at the scene of a strike.
We must protect these [first responders] so they can continue to rescue others, he said.
Fakih and his teams often rush people they rescue in Nabatieh city and the surrounding areas to Nabih Berri public hospital, a few minutes drive from their lookout on the hilltop.
Since 23 September 23, when Israel escalated its attacks across Lebanon, the hospital has treated around 1,200 people wounded in nearby Israeli strikes, the hospitals director, Hassan Wazzani, told MEE.
''We have to pull out the dead bodies of people we love, friends and families we know, neighbours, people from our own area''
- Hussein Jaber, civil defence
Fakih was one of those patients.
The hospital also has one of the countrys two leading burn units. Wazzani said that in addition to injuries to the head, abdomen, legs and arms, victims of Israeli air strikes also often have severe burns.
One of the two patients in the burn unit when MEE visited was 29-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Nazar, receiving treatment for second and third degree burns all over his body. A large piece of shrapnel had also ripped through his right leg, leaving him with several stitches.
His voice was faint, and he looked to be in pain as he spoke. Two days earlier, when MEE first visited on 7 November, he was in so much pain he could not utter a single word.
Around three weeks earlier, Nazar and his two friends were home making dinner for their neighbours in their village Arab Salim, about 10kms from Nabatieh city.
The young men had been serving food almost every day to these people, who Nazar said had been left behind and did not have family or relatives to care for them.
But that evening their benevolent act was interrupted by an Israeli missile barrelling into the house next door and sending their home up in flames.
The moment we were hit, I felt the air pressure hit. Suddenly you lose all senses, no vision, anything, Nazar said.
One of Nazars friends, Ali, was killed in the strike. He was about Nazars age.
Nazar said that once he heals he will still return to Arab Salim. Its my village, he said. Its scary, but we have nowhere else to go.
In the room next to Nazar, Saadoun Barakat, 52, had been hospitalised in the burn unit for over a month when MEE visited.
His left arm, which was covered in second and third degree burns, was still heavily bandaged. Blood was crusted at the end of the bandage, where a few of his fingers poked out.
An Israeli air strike on 24 September hit his home in the southern village of Marjayoun. His brother Khalid, sitting next to him in the hospital room, said that at first, the burns had left him unrecognisable. He showed MEE a photo of Barakat soon after the strike, his face dark purple and eyes swollen shut.
There was a burning pain¦ When the missile first struck it was like hell, Barakat said from his hospital bed.
The cost of long in-patient stays, like Barakats, would be exorbitant if the Ministry of Health did not cover it, Wazzani, the hospital director noted. For instance, one day in the burn unit costs around $500, he said.
The director worried that the hospital wouldnt be able to sustain the costs for an extended period: I dont know if in the future, they will have money. Were in an economic crisis.
Meanwhile, sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier shake the hospitals windows nearly every day.
The booms, which mimic the sound of explosions, gave Barakat panic attacks, Ali Omeis, the hospital''s supervisor, told MEE.
Just a week after Barakat was admitted, the force of a strike a kilometre away in Nabatieh caused parts of the ceiling to fall in front of his hospital bed - shocking the already-traumatised patient.
Omeis said that only heavy drugs like morphine and alprazolam (an anxiety medication) could ease his intense pain and panic.
On the way down from the burn unit, Omeis commented on the hospital staffs own physical and psychological exhaustion from the war and consecutive crises in Lebanon.
Were tired of being strong, he said. "From Covid, the financial crisis, and now this war.
Back at the hilltop, Fakihs colleagues also spoke about the immense stress and psychological pressure they were under.
Mentally, we are all struggling, Hussein Jaber, 30, from Nabatiehs civil defence, told MEE.
We are struggling with the lack of stability. We are always on the move, cant sleep well, and are being put in intense situations, he said.
We have to pull out the dead bodies of people we love, friends and families we know, neighbours, people from our own area.
We are doing our jobs and feel responsible for saving peoples lives, yet we are in great fear because we are also being targeted, Jaber said.
Once the conversations finished, silence fell over the hilltop, broken only by deadly hum of an Israeli drone. The rescue workers simultaneously looked to the sky, trying to spot it.
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